Falls the Shadow
by Thanatosx49
Summary: The Time War story you never knew you wanted...
1. prologue

_No vision of the morrow's strife,  
__The warrior's dream alarms;  
__No __braying horn nor screaming fife  
__At dawn shall call_ to_ arms..._

- "Bivouac of the Dead"  
by _Thomas O'Meara_

Memory had finally returned, in the wake of leaving Anji and Fitz. Memory, along with that damned Time Scoop, hauling me and my TARDIS from the midst of the Vortex. Sparks raining down around the console; smoke that would've choked me, if it wasn't for the respiratory bypass, thick in the air. The Cloister Bell sounding the alarm, I forced through the doors. Lips tight with anger at the sheer stupidity of the act, I strode forth, onto the marble floor of the High Chambers. Stepping up to Romana, standing close enough to loom as best I could, I ground out, nearly shaking with rage, "Have you any possible idea what you could've done, what destruction on a universal scale you could have wreaked?"

I firmly ignored the ranks of stodgy council members, all with their fancy, high collars and expressions of superiority and distaste. "And for what, another meaningless reprimand, another folly of an errand that needs doing that would involve one of this lot risking the dangers of actually doing something that means something, otherwise?"

Romana's face tightened, but she remained unmoved in the face of my tirade. She began to pace, hands tucked behind her back, Presidential robes trailing behind her. I had taught her well, mentored her carefully- or so I'd thought- but not for the likes of this, such subterfuge and brashness. Such folly. Amongst other things, I thought I had at least taught her the concepts of subtlety, of considering the possible consequences that could effect other species beyond Gallifrey's sphere. Apparently not.

"No, Doctor. This time, it's not any of those things. No Keys, no Borusa scheming in the shadows, no farcical trial, nor anyone scheming for control of the Matrix." She paused, adding with a raised brow, "Not even the Master, though he's returned as well, now."

Shock and outrage burned hot within. Just as I had begun to have hope that maybe they might have learned, moved beyond the folly of their ways, there was this. This. "He's dead," I denied flatly, hoping it was still true. Foolish, damnable hope. A fool, I was. _Still am, more's the pity._

Romana waved a hand in dismissal, also pretending that this was a private audience. "The Resurrection Glove; we restored his regeneration cycle."

"Have you all gone mad in the time I've been gone," I sputtered. "What reason could there possibly be to inflict that psychopathic lunatic on the cosmos? Aren't there enough planets in ruins, enough dead scattered across far flung worlds, enough widows and orphans for all of time?" I retorted, shaking my head. Stupider and stupider, to paraphrase poor little lost Alice. My outrage knew no bounds this time. "He even blocked a fire plug with a stolen vehicle, the last go around. An ambulance, of all things! Not to mention the death and destruction he left behind him. I tell you what, the Daleks had it right, for once." I crossed my arms over my chest, glancing around to see if any of my words were actually doing more than falling upon deaf ears. "If I'd not reversed the time stream, there'd be no earth, much less a very unhappy fire brigade, all because of him. What reason could there possibly be for such madness as this?"

"It was necessary."

"Oh, I think not. Have you any exactitude of the dangers the Resurrection Glove poses, even disregarding who you've brought back? Things happen for a reason. Everything has it's time; everything dies. I thought you, of all people, would grasp that. Call me the meddling, sentimental fool, pah!" I shook my head in dismay, finally taking in the appearance of the council members standing in their precise ranks, behind her. Normally unblemished robes were frayed at the hems, head pieces and high collars askew, perennially impassive eyes tired and worn. Something was wrong; very wrong, that I could not dismiss. What, had Leela set fire to their precious archives of endless files and forms done in triplicate? Narvin gone mad and defiled their stately courtly rituals and trampled his robes of state and run screaming for the hills to go live with the hermit on the side of Mount Perdition?

_None of that,_ _I_ _would soon find. Sadly so._

"War, Doctor." At first a low murmur, barely heard and barely grasped in meaning, it meant little to my ears. Clever Romana, she must have known it as she turned, raised her chin, and repeated coldly, "War has come to Gallifrey."

Wise men and mystics spread across the galaxies still speak of it, in legends and tales told on dark nights under millions of different worlds, with starscapes you couldn't even dream of. People who never even, couldn't possibly have even fathomed, much less known what happened then. They speak in hushed, reverent tones of a war in heaven.

I suppose then, that you could call it that – a war with demons and fallen angels, even. All played out among a thousand different time lines that will be, can be, should be, and must never happen. All ending in a flash, over eons, millennia, all in a mere Moment. But call them not angels, for we were all far from that lofty and exalted appellation. Though, the demons, of those there were aplenty. And more; the Nightmare Child, the Horde of Travesties, the Could-Have-Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres... The horrors your little mind couldn't even imagine. You wouldn't want to; you'd go mad, as I have. Even I couldn't have grasped the scope of things, when the summons came that fateful day. No one could've, not even the Visionary.

As for fallen, we all fell in the end. As we must, with all remaining innocence lost in the face of brutal reality. None so more than I. Because I watched it happen. I _made_ it happen.

This, this is my story. Now listen closely...


	2. i

I should never have let myself be manipulated by the Sisterhood. Never.

_ Arcadia, the first time around...or was it?_

_Oh, how I'd like to forget that place. It used to be surrounded by fertile fields, fragrant vineyards, that bustling city. Nigh on bursting at the seams with life – but not anymore. The people there were as people are anywhere across the universe: some good, brave, honest and caring; others, not so much so. They were merchants and farmers, scientists and dreamers, mothers and children. And I turned them all to warriors, victims – the dead. So many dead._

Stars, what have I done?

_It all comes back to me, whispering in the back of my consciousness. Full recollection comes at the worst of times, in dreams, or worse when I'm awake. The smells of smoke, burning flesh and dying dreams comes back, oh so clearly. Oh, so harsh. Cruelly so, since I'm the only one left who saw what happened there and survived. Worse yet, since I'm the one that deserved survival the least and I can't stop running. I just can't._

And I'm still running...

_All those bright, shining faces, still full of hope and looking at me with eyes that show the depths of their belief. Perfect, spotless uniforms, still untouched by blood; boots still shined up to a mirror-like shine; straight, attentive postures not ravaged by exhaustion and defeatism; limbs still whole and strong- but for how much longer? Why, might you ask? I'll tell you, though you'll probably regret it. I do, you know – I regret so much. But here we are, we're the last line of defence, Arcadia's last stand. They're all looking at me with the misplaced faith that I can lead them to victory; that we'll all come out of this stronger, braver, having fought back the enemy._

_But how can I tell them? Tell them what they'll be facing, what's coming, how they'll likely die – if they're lucky. Maybe if we're all lucky, we'll die here. Die once, and not a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times as time is cleaved into interminable eddies, rifts and loops. Tell them that if you want to believe in something, believe that your loved ones really did love you. Believe that there might just possibly be a future for those who haven't the misfortune to amongst our number, who missed the call to war. Believe that you'll be remembered for your sacrifices here. Believe that your deaths will mean something in the grand scheme of things. Something, anything, but don't believe in me. I'm the one that chose this, chose to become a warrior, and Warrior I am._

Just don't call me 'Doctor'.

_Call me Death, call me the Destroyer, call me the General, but not that. Anything but that. I'm not him, not anymore. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. I did, once I saw what I had done; what I had become, what I'd caused. No, I hadn't the right, but I do hold the blame for much of this debacle. And somehow, I must end this. End it – before there's nothing else left, nothing but death and destruction. There's been enough of that already; bodies left in veritable windrows across the stars, worlds burning, forming anew, and ceasing to exist- all at the same moment in time. Time being rewritten so many times it frays, falters, then collapses. No more. No. Now it's time to take up the mantle of responsibility and reason, whatever it might cost. It might cost everything – including me._

I hope it does – I'm running out of time, too.

One face stands out from the crowd, startling me from my recriminations, making my heart go cold. Disregarding the incredulous looks and confusion left in my wake, as I discard all decorum and protocol to stride forth. I grab his arm, ignoring his protests in a haze of rage as I pull him away from the gathered troops. Rounding on him, I pull myself to my full height, cursing this body's lack of it and the boy's father's genetics. Fourth me could've loomed over him far better than I, enhancing the appearance of authority and intimidation. "Alex, what do you think you're doing? I'm taking you back home, _now."_

The boy – a man in his own right by now, really, but loath was I to see him as more than what I'd remembered from far simpler times – lifted his chin, clearly unafraid. "I came to fight, Great-grandfather. I'm not leaving, not until we've seen this through."

I gaped at him, incredulous at the temerity of youth. Callow youth, so unknowing, so unbelieving of the consequences; in permanent denial of fate. I shook my head, scowling all the harder when my hair fell loose around my shoulders, the bit of string that had restrained it breaking free. One more trouble amongst the many, but I wasn't going to spare the energy for minor failings such as that, not when there was so much more at hand. It was already too late to send him back to where he'd be safe. Things were too far gone; the scouts' reports had come in, just moments before I'd stood to address the troops one last time before battle.

Pah, troops. Boys, really; cannon fodder, more like. Alex... no, it couldn't happen, it wouldn't. I _wouldn't_ let it happen.

I turned away, hiding my face and the proud half-smile I was unable to stop from forming on my lips. I saw Susan in him. So much so, it hurt sometimes. She'd blame me for this, surely. "Ye gods, your mother is going to regenerate me for this," I muttered, turning around once I'd marshalled my features into a stern, disapproving cast. "How did you even get here?"

Alex shrugged, like it was nothing at all, like this wasn't life or death, like this wasn't war. "The Rani. Snuck in with her."

"Sneaked, boy, _sneaked._ At least speak of it properly, if you're going to risk your life by gleefully parading ahead into danger while ignoring the inherent risks involved," I snarked distractedly, mind more focused on what he'd so casually said.

_The Rani._ Things really must be that far gone, if they'd called her back. But then, why not? They had me here, playing soldiers with children; Koschei was leading the assault on the Cruciform. If they had resurrected him with the Resurrection Glove, why not reinstate Ushas? Who next, Drax, the Meddling Monk, the War Chief? Why not have _all_ of Gallifrey's exiles and renegades leading the war efforts, so as to let them keep their hands clean as possible from this mess. Pitiful cowards.

"She's in charge of the bioweapons, to be used in the main assault," Alex so cheerfully supplied. Cheeky lad. "Overheard Uncle Brax relaying the message from the Council chambers."

_Oh Romana, what have you done? Brought back the outcasts and rebels, set Braxiatel as a war advisor, let the Rani use her weapons of genocide..._

"The messages should be coming through to you shortly, I'd imagine," Alex added helpfully.

Time, always time, and I for one had no hope that the sky trenches and transduction fields would hold. When the alerts came in from the sentries, for a moment time stood still. The Dalek fleet was in orbit above, battle TARDISes already engaging them. We were to stand fast, remain here as the last defenses, even as we watched the destruction begin. It was a punishment for defying orders and not preventing Davros' creations to survive that nursery; punishment for starting the war in the first place. Even as the first pieces of flaming debris that had once been the 42nd Prydonian fleet rained down around our ears, I could still hear Cass' condemnation.

_What's the difference anymore..._

Once the Daleks started leaving their ships, the sky trenches having fallen moments before and the city streets already overrun with fleeing civilians, the writing was on the wall. It didn't take a genius to see what was coming.

I looked to my TARDIS, standing there with an air of forbidding disapproval. She'd mostly shut off our connection since Karn, and I missed that. I missed her. She was all I had left. I'd given up my pride, my honor, my home was in ruins... but what else was there to lose? It was against the rules, but what place was there for rules when no one was going to observe them? What place was there, when our own enemies were using the same against us? They'd already released a mass of Weeping Angels on the Nestene home world, enough to erase the whole planet from existence as they harvested its potential. Now there were rumors of causal loops large enough to swallow entire worlds and systems whole, booby traps meant to snare any intrepid scouts that sought to leave Gallifrey.

But what other hope did we have, did this city have? What other chance was there to take? None. I could take this entire motley assortment of orphans, scoundrels and the otherwise innocent, and take them back. Rewind time enough to warn the War Room and prevent what was coming. Or, I could just... let it happen.

No, I told myself. I once swore an oath to myself to make things better, to try with everything I had. I couldn't just let that go, could I? Not and let the Daleks steal one more victory.

"Come on, into the TARDIS," I called, reaching for my key. "Forget what you were taught at the Academy – time _can_ be rewritten."


	3. ii

_There's but the twinkling of a star, __Between a man of peace and war_.

Samuel Butler

_Hudibras, Canto iii_

Back when I was still the Doctor, back when Romana first tried drafting me into the war, I refused. Oh, how I dug my heels in and refused to fight, like a lamb refusing to be led to slaughter. That was before I was the one with the stick and shepherd dog, leading they of the wool covered eyes- leading them all merrily off to the charnel house.

_Before..._

"Are you impugning your own honor as a Time Lord of Gallifrey and as former Lord President."

"What I am impugning is your sense of credulity, Romana," I retorted, ignoring the incredulous and scandalized whispers around us. Chalk this up for another story that'd be making the rounds, one more nail in the coffin of my reputation. But then, my reputation _was_ for being a renegade. What else did they expect? "The nerve, believing that I'd enter into battle. I'm the Doctor, mayhem and bloodshed are the antithesis of who I am. Helping you wage war is hardly 'making things better' is it?"

"Doctor!" Romana protested, face flushed with embarrassment and anger as she darted a look at the others watching. She was puffing herself up inside her robes; perhaps to look more imposing and authoritative. Peh, laughing in the face of authority had long been a pastime of mine. Well beyond a hobby now, more an ingrained trait, nearly written within my genetics.

"You were expecting someone else, my dear?" I grinned at her, raising my brows with a certain lack of the scraping and grovelling that was expected.

"Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private, discuss this act of... treason... elsewhere." She gave me an arch look, not looking away as she wordlessly reminded me of the armed guards standing by, ready to haul me somewhere where I could wait until I was feeling more obedient. They already had the TARDIS surrounded; there was no escaping this.

Deciding to be compliant for once, I turned back, smiling broadly and dipping into a low, courtly bow. "I concur, Madam President. Shall we adjourn to a more suitable environment for discourse?" I'd lull them into a state of complacency, thinking I was going to be the proper Lord- yes, I would. Fool them into believing I would submit that easily and slip away when they least expected it. I gave it no more than a span. But then, judging from the hardness in Romana's eye and the set of her jaw, I edged my initial estimate a bit further. A month, tops.

_Little did I know, it would be far, far more_.

I started out as a noncombatant, a medic, administering aid on the battlefields where ever they might be. But what good was it, when you've got a squadron run afoul of a chrono-loops that've all been aged to dust? Boys, mere boys, barely past the time they'd looked into the Untempered Schism, gone to dust. They'd never even had the chance to get as far as becoming inspired or go mad from what they'd seen, practically. Hardly even the option of running away before being drafted into the ranks. And I, with my broom and dustpan, bags of elixirs and poultices slung over my shoulders, could do nothing to bring them back. Dust couldn't regenerate, nor could it be revived by any of the potions meant to restore life. All I could do was stand by in horror and shame, as I watched a hundred worlds laid to waste and millions die around me. It sickened me, deep down in my soul, a little part of me hardening like to stone.

_How much more?_ I thought to myself. I watched the strange carrion birds on an alien planet, wheeling in a sky that was rapidly turning to cinders, the dust of another world gone to a mire with the blood of the slain. I could step back into my TARDIS, put in different coordinates and still find myself in the same place - or as good as. Past, present, future: they were all dying out there, planets burned to a crisp or frozen when their suns were forced into supernova, just so one side or the other could harvest the energy. And in the middle of it all, Gallifrey stood, crouched behind her defences as a billion, billion warships were barely held at bay. Those formerly devoted to ritual and tradition and benevolently observing the rest of the universe, did it no more. Now, they gathered the hearts and souls of our young, primed them for battle, and sent them off to kill or be killed. Benevolence was passé.

Only once did I find someone I thought I could aid, a injured Sontaran who'd got caught in the crossfire. Bandages and plasters in hand, I rushed to his side, ignoring the overwhelming futility of the deed as I assessed the damage. "Leave me. I wish to die here, in the face of the valorous honor that is battle," he said weakly, staying my hand with his dying strength.

"Believe me, there is no honor in this," I rebuffed him, refusing to accept defeat.

He looked at me, disapproval and condescension starkly painting his features as he said, "Go, Time Lord. The might of Sontar might be denied the glorious challenge of war, but you are not. Go join your brethren, in hopes that you, too, may enjoy the such an honor as mine. I die here, as I wished."

Steadfastly, I denied his words once again. It may have been a truth, but it was not my truth and I wouldn't accept it as such. "No, you cannot, I won't let you. There's no point in dying, not in such a folly as this... there has to be another way."

"Sontar-ha!" was all he said, light fading from his eyes as he went limp in my arms. Around me, burning bits of wreckage from a hundred ships cast their glow. My eyes burned from the smoke as a stray bit of flame licked at the edge of my coat. By the time I stood, having closed the Sontaran's eyes and taken a moment to pay my respects, night had fallen. Ash and dust swirled in orange-tinted vistas, the smell of defeat heavy in my hearts and the winds of change carrying me inexorably onward.

Back to the Citadel I went, striding into the Panopticon itself. It was chaotic, with all the robed fools flapping and fluttering about, not a single person I knew in sight. They all did their best to step out of my path; one look at my soot darkened features and my ragged clothes and they knew. They all knew- the frivolous, soft old men, all who'd never left the safety of Gallifrey once in all their millennia worth of lives.

"Romana!" I turned about, casting my eyes for her familiar features, not caring that the assembled Cardinals and Lords had drawn even further away. They looked at me with a mixture of distaste and pity, like one would gaze upon a madman and shun him. Madness it was, but a madness not of my own making. Someone else had poured the petrol on the embers, setting to the flames of war. "Romana, where are you?"

A doddering elder stepped forth from the mass of red, orange, yellow, and green robes. He hesitated at first, jaw working, but then raised his chin arrogantly as he spoke, "She is addressing the Council, in regards to the news from the War Room. Arcadia has fallen."

My hearts froze, even as confusion battled with apprehension and dismay within. "But it fell last week."

The elder tucked his arms into his sleeves, nodding as if to himself. "For sooth, it is so. And this is this week. Arcadia will fall again and again, until the correct outcome is gained. It will be so."

Apprehension and dismay, indeed. "That's against all the laws of time; against all we have stood for," I protested. All those faces just looked at me dispassionately, unruffled, like this wasn't an abomination of all our principles. "There's a hundred planets, just this day alone, lost. Billions upon billions of lives lost, with no survivors on any of them, and you're telling me we're now initiating a massive paradox on our own soil? Do you realise the sheer madness of it all, what could be born from this? Have you any idea what we're inviting upon our own heads? And not just ours, the stability of the timelines is crucial; a million worlds out there could be destroyed with one misstep. All those lives, all those innocent lives, do you really think you can live with that? Can you, can you?!"

The words echoed back from vaulted ceilings, no one answering or even meeting my eye as they looked away in shame. Hoarse now and struggling to catch my breath, I heard a voice speak from behind me. "Time itself is bleeding. The Daleks have mastered the art of time travel and are using these very tactics against us. Every victory we earn in wages of blood and flesh, every inch of ground we retake, all is undone and turned to another defeat. Dare we not do the same as they do?"

For a moment I stayed there, refusing to look back, refusing to acknowledge her words and her presence. When there was naught else, for she stood between me and my ship, I slowly turned and met her eyes. An aching hollow had taken the place of my hearts it seemed and I could still smell death and destruction still clinging to my clothes, wafting along like a constant companion. _Oh, Romana..._

I mourned even as the dull heat of rage warmed me from within. I had to make a stand. That's what you did: you made a stand, _especially_ when no one else would. I wasn't ready to lay down my principles, even if everyone else apparently had done. "Not if it means we become the same, not if there's no difference between us anymore. Time Lords destroying the universe to stop the Daleks from conquering it are not better. If we stoop to their level, become like them, what better are we than they are? What difference will it make in the end, when all is in death and ruins?"

_I hadn't met Cass yet, hadn't given hope of a better way back then. I still thought there was some other way I could stop this, keep the destruction of the war from spreading any further. No, I even thought I might be able to push it back, reclaim what had already been lost. If the Council had authorized the use of paradoxes and interference with one's own time stream, so be it. I would snatch as many as I could from the jaws of death or die trying, I would. But, in the end, she was so right and I was so wrong. What difference was there? What had I become as well? Because sometimes when you refuse to fight, you're also refusing to take up arms against injustice; just letting things happen, even when it's wrong. 'Thus does cowardice make a mockery of us all.'_


	4. iii

_After…_

Ashes were all that remained of the red grass that had formerly graced the slopes of Mount Perdition. Indeed, ashes were all that were left of my home, once the Dalek fleet had taken to strafing the areas beyond the transduction barriers. I had returned to bury Quintus and Innocet, for there was no one else available to do so. Mother was in with the High Council, trying to temper the newly resurrected Rassilon's growing madness with a voice of reason. Good luck on that, I had told her. Better chance of holding back the tide with a broken mop and catching the fickle winds with a rusted sieve. Or even yet, dissuading a bunch of indoctrinated fools from throwing themselves in the grim jaws of death.

Rumors abounded of those who'd been caught in quantum spacial loops upon the point of regeneration. The flames of renewal burning in an endless loop until someone fetched a demat gun to collapse the causality field around them and in so doing, bring a finally mercy to those caught in that trap. They'd start the change, but their cells wouldn't stabilize, flickering from one state, into the next and the next after that... screams of agony ripped from their throat. Rumor also had it that the regeneration limit meant nothing when someone got caught in one of those spots, though none could say where they'd come from in the first place. Some said they were traps set by the Daleks, Davros' newest contribution to the war. Others said it was something invented by our own scientists and had gone awry, slipped out of all means to control it. Whispers passed along in the dark of night or told around watch fires, chilling the hearts of all. Pestilence and plague upon us all, it was nothing but our own hubris, come to nip us in the behinds as our just reward, simple as that.

I preferred to walk, feeling the bones of the land beneath my feet instead of the newly fallen for a change, knowing all too well this could be the last time I did so. I didn't care the distance it was from the Citadel- what did it matter anymore? Tomorrow the planet could be destroyed, or I could find myself caught up like other unfortunates had. Death would come for us all; some, sooner than others. _There, but for the grace of fate, go any of us..._

A maypole stood outside a burned and deserted village not far from what once had been home. The children's ribbons were left hanging, their colors the only bright patches amongst the grey desolation around me. Even the orange skies above were as such, ash and smoke forming clouds that blotted out the sun, dulling the gleam of the silver leaves on the few remaining trees still standing. It was so harsh, so incomparable to what I had once known. Elliot was so right when he'd said one couldn't go home again. Certainly not when home was the pale shade of what it once had been, some place that seemingly only existed in my mind now. No wonder Mother had deferred on the chance to come back- there was nothing to come back to.

Mercifully, no bodies had been left along that abandoned road; I could but hope they'd all found refuge before the disaster struck. To have seen them- those whose faces I would've known or possibly not- it would've broken my hearts just the little bit more than they already were. No, I would go on in the fervent belief that they still lived, that somewhere those children would grow up, flourish, and someday know peace. A man can dream, can't he? Until then, there were respects to be paid to those who'd never asked for this war, hadn't done anything to bring down its consequences upon themselves. It was always the innocents that paid in blood, never just the ones who started the mess, as it should be. Victory was measured in footholds gained and enemy forces put into retreat, but at what cost? What price was worth enough for futures that wouldn't happen, lost joy, and a surcease of fear? Nothing was, nothing.

My hands reached for a ribbon, inexorably drawn to the brightness even as I pulled away. What right had I to defile such innocent things with my own bloodstained hands, even if those who'd played with them were since departed? _None at all,_ I thought, closing my eyes in grief. Where there was life there was hope. There was no life here. Opening my eyes again, I took in the looming shapes of the mountains around me. The smoking rubble of my former House just barely visible on the hillside above, even as a solemn mantra took form within my breast: _No more._

_Before..._

"Mother, I can't do this."

She looked at me gravely, eyes unquestioning and gentle, even as her lips pursed. "You know your duty, my son."

I looked down at my hands, stiff with the dried blood of yet another person that I couldn't save. Cracked and weathered skin told a tale of much labor and hardship down in the trenches, but it wasn't really true. I was still alive, where was the hardship in that? Somehow I had survived battles where no one else had walked away, lowly medic that I was. If I was lucky, I got there before the fighting started and managed to whisk away the people who'd have been slaughtered otherwise. Sometimes, if I was even more lucky, no one turned back time and changed it all. Today wasn't one of those days. I had saved one family- just one- coming back to Hyloglobia Three moments after I had left, and there they were: twisted and bloodied beneath the wreckage of a Battle TARDIS. The mother was the last one still breathing; only living long enough to peer at me with accusation in her eyes and her remaining arm wrapped around her slain babe, protecting it, even in death. I got there even as those eyes grew dim and her life force fled, barely in time to say 'sorry'. I didn't know if she'd even heard me, much less did it matter if she had. What use was the heartsfelt apology of the one who'd been unable to save her?

Now, weariness traced every line and ached deep within me- another constant companion I had gained. Everyone said I had to do my duty, take up arms and join the ranks, but still I was determined to do no such thing. "I could go back... see them all one last time, before I..." I looked up, words drying up in my throat.

Somehow, she understood. "Then go, do what you must. You'll have to return when the time has come, but until then... go."

Ducking my head in shame, I went. It wasn't the first time I had fled Gallifrey and I doubt it'll be the last. War or no war, things would sort out in the end. Peace would eventually come to Gallifrey, once cooler heads prevailed. Romana was working to have the special dispensations allowing time stream interference and the use of chrono-loops revoked. Eventually even the Daleks would run out of artillery and they'd scurry on back to Skaro. They'd restored that back to existence long since, provoking this conflict from a slow simmer to a rapid boil with it.

Somehow, even watching the column in the center of my TARDIS console as I made my escape failed to be as relaxing as it formerly was. Skaro's destruction was one more on my list of inequities and failures, along with that accursed nursery. Never mind that it had been the Time Lords plan all along, and I'd only the desire at the time to be a harmless traveller; a wanderer in the fourth dimension, as it were. _Have I the right...?_ No, but I was just as guilty for starting this mess, wasn't I? I was there when it all started.

_Even with that, I couldn't go back. Not then. It wasn't until much later that I went, forced by necessity and the Sisterhood of Karn's machinations. Weeks, years, decades I spent, scooping up survivors wherever I could, until none dared follow me to the safety I offered. What was the point, when there_ was_ nowhere safe left and none would trust my kind. I went when there was nothing else more blatantly obvious:_ what use was there for a Doctor? _So I became what I am now:_ a Warrior.


	5. iv

_Between the idea_

_And the reality_

_Between the motion_

_And the act..._

TS Elliot, _The Hollow Men_

_After..._

"Grandfather."

I had thought I was alone, there in the abandoned marble halls outside the War Room. Inside that accursed room, fools and knaves made their plans on how to wrest one hectare more from the enemy, with little regard to what their plans would ultimately effect- or whom, rather. Outside, in these formerly hallowed halls, there were only cobwebs and dust, now that the war had taken such a vast toll on the population. The stale, unmoving air was laced with the regrets and losses of ten billion years. Oh, and me. Fitting, wasn't it?

Except I wasn't alone. Susan, dear Susan, was standing there, dressed in clothes that still smelled of the twenty second century. Half in the shadows as I was, her voice held a question, as if she wasn't sure it was I. Who could blame her for her uncertainty? I wasn't sure who I was anymore. I nodded, but didn't step into the light, preferring to stay against the wall. It was the only thing keeping me on my feet at that point. The Zarbi were no more, I had just learned. One more race had been sacrificed to the ever hungry maw of conflict.

"What are you doing here," I rasped, not daring to look at her. What else would be drawn in, fodder for the flames? "Why, in the name of all that is true, are you _here?_"

Susan swallowed, hesitating before answering, "The Lady President - she's recalled all living Time Lords back to Gallifrey, for the war."

A bitter laugh burned in my throat, managing to escape only when I looked up. She was still so young compared to me, still so innocent, and far too much trust still shone in her eyes as she looked at me, studying my face. "They'll be raising the dead next," I joked humorlessly; though, inside I shuddered, knowing it could very well be a prophesy of things to come.

_How right I would soon be. Fools think together and no greater fool than I, was there?_

"You've changed, Grandfather," she accused, not appreciating what passed for my humor these days. "How?"

The remained energies of that forced regeneration had not ceased to linger in my bones; flesh and sinew tight and hot beneath skin that still felt unfamiliar. I'd only looked upon my visage once in a mirror, and never again since. Looking upon the man in the mirror was too hard, as I found my previous selves rightfully looking back in judgement of what I had become. I grimaced at the recollection. Still uncomfortable with those changes, and ever ready to ignore the parts of reality I didn't favor, I had mostly kept from acknowledging it to myself- much less to others. But I did smile. I had to, otherwise I'd be railing at the skies like a madman. "Ran afoul of the Keepers of the Flame of Eternal Boredom. This was their grand scheme to save the universe."

Looking shocked and horrified, she put a hand up to cover her mouth. "But Grandfather, that's awful!"

"More necessary than awful, I've been told, and little choice besides. Let it be said that necessity is the mother of invention, my dear, and this-" I waved a hand to indicate my coarsened and battered attire, "-was more required than you can ever imagine. Far more has changed than I have. Look around you, have you ever known this place to be this quiet? Or the city below so chaotic?"

She shook her head. "No. It's so... like they discarded their dignity, like the stag before the hounds, like the humans of earth would say."

Good analogy, that. I could think of none better. Humans, always so good with words and turn of phrases. Would I ever get the chance to see those clever primates again? I thought not, but I could still hope. Perhaps if I could manage to slip away, I could go back. Go back to earth and find a worthy companion, take them to see the wonders amongst the stars - I should like that very much indeed. "Very much so." I rocked forward onto my toes, the moment of overwhelming remorse passed enough to set aside for the time being. "Refugees, in from the outlying colonies, and others, like you: the newly returned. None that aren't of Gallifrey, though. Heavens forfend that any people but ours gaze upon our famed domed city and dine with dusty statesmen." More bitterness and regret crept into my voice, remembering an old argument with Romana over whether opening up our barriers to allow other races in. After all, this was the safest place in the galaxy so far. Not like we'd be dropping time bombs on ourselves and using demat guns against our own people, would we? A worrisome thought occurred to me then. "Alex, did they make him stay behind...?"

Susan smiled at me in assurance, shaking her head. "No, he's here. They let me bring him with me, despite who his father was. I've hopes to enroll him in the Academy."

"Pointless. Only thing being taught there now is the fine art of dying. In formation and with fully proper military procedure, of course - they wouldn't have it any other way," I said as an aside, mind whirling as I began to pace. If they were here, they could be drafted into service. Susan, she wouldn't make a soldier by anyone's standards, but Alex...

I could get them out of here, find them somewhere, _somewhen__,_ the Council wouldn't look for them, mask their bio signatures somehow... No matter how much subterfuge and creeping about it took, I could do it. I could pull this off with one arm tied behind my back. These could be two lives spared, a little piece of my hearts kept safe from the ravages of war. The _only_ thing kept safe, I figured, whatever hadn't been hardened to the point of petrification yet.

"Come, we'll go to the TARDIS, I'll find you both somewhere safe. Where's the boy?"

But Susan shook her head, something akin to regret and disappointment on her face as she said, "No, Grandfather. Not this time. I can't just abandon our people, our family, like that."

I sighed. Of course she'd be that loyal, that honorable. If nothing else, I had taught her that much. If I only I hadn't been such a good man then. If only...

Susan stepped forward, daring to approach and lay a gentle hand on my arm. So small, so fragile, compared to me. Why would she do this, why? "And Alex... he wants to be here, too. Can't you understand, Grandfather?"

I understood too well. Far too well, and I mourned it already, knowing the odds. "You'll die here," I told her, not willing to sugarcoat the truth. "We'll all die here. It's just a matter of time and how far the Council is willing to go and how many they'll destroy along with us. All is lost, even if we haven't accepted what's before our very eyes. Do you want that for your son, as well?"

Tears stood in her eyes as she backed away, shaking her head in denial. "No, Grandfather, just... no. There has to be another way, there has to be. We cannot all just give up hope, we can't."

I turned away, unable to look upon her and see her disappointment and sorry any longer. "All hope is gone, there is no more hope left. _None__._ Arcadia calls, for the fourth time. What hope can there be when that city and its people has been lost and restored over and over again? Soon the timelines around it will begin to tangle, and once that starts it won't be long before they collapse. This is just delaying the inevitable." I strode away, knowing that I would still end up being drawn to Arcadia again. Indeed, _Arcadia calls..._


	6. v

_Between the conception_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion _

_And the response..._

_The Hollow Men_

T.S. Elliot

_Before..._

This brave human girl was staring up at me, fear and hatred shining bright in her dark eyes. So much hatred in one so young as she defiantly retorted, "Who can tell the difference anymore!"

Nothing I could tell her would persuade her any differently, not even my ineffectual pounding on the airlock door. Alas, not even my futile attempts to dissuade her from her mindless determination to take us both to our deaths and to override the locking system proved effective. Even as our eyes met through that tiny window, her sobbing in terror and anger and I pleading for her to open the door and join me- even then I knew it was hopeless.

There in a moment of stark clarity as I felt the ship beneath my feet breach the upper atmosphere of the planet below, flashes of what it all had come to came to me. The Zarbi were no more; the Zygons had fled throughout time and space, scattered like so much chaff before the wind; and everything that I had knew and loved was destroyed or nigh on to it. The hopelessness I suddenly felt was reflected back by the unflinching eyes of a young human girl who was determined to take up arms against the greater threat by taking one, lone Time Lord to the grave with her. But what folly, what irony, her getting the one example of that people who was a noncombatants. And in those dark eyes I saw the myriad of hopes and dreams, fears and desires looking back at me, such as I'd seen in the eyes of so many before her. It was why I travelled with them, took them as companions- to see the wonders of the universe anew through their eyes. And now, here was one who'd seen the wonders replaced by horrors. So much so that the tide was rapidly turning, rushing past the tipping point. How much longer before there was nothing left, when all was lost to paradoxes and time being rewritten so many times that it all just fell apart?

I had run for so long, stopping back once, on a foolish trip down memory lane to spy on my younger selves and my former companions from afar. Rarely was I seen, merely a fleeting glimpse in the corner of the eye in a moment where everyone was caught up in celebrating their survival, but I was there. It was a comfort, seeing them so alive, untarnished by later events. I saw Adric arguing with Tegan and watched Mel coerce me into joining her in her calisthenics routine. That coat didn't mesh with exercise band she'd put around my forehead, but no worries on that- nothing else actually went with it either. Certainly not myself looking in on a stolen moment, trying to shove away all thoughts of the war for all of reality happening now, then, tomorrow and never all at once.

What finally sent me back to the inevitable spiral that was fate was accidentally running into Ace in London. She was coming out of that boarding house as I was rushing to the school, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ian and Barbara before they stepped into the snare of destiny and decided to investigate a certain student of theirs. Overhearing her muttering to herself and complaining about, "Not getting any real explanations about anything, ever," I could not help myself.

I spoke up. "What good would it do, child? How could I have explained what was going on when I still hasn't figured everything out and the rest of it I was trying to deny to myself? What would you have thought if I'd just said right out, 'Ooops, sorry. I mustn't have been thinking when I left behind that thing that could've turned your whole planet into a burnt out waste'?" A hint of my former accent crept into my voice, my tone slightly sharp with closely held guilt and remorse.

She stopped, shoulders hunched beneath that bulky jacket that she loved with all its colorful patches. Hesitating, she called out, "Professor," not turning around, noting the unfamiliar voice she'd heard. That little hint of challenge, that still held that layer of trust in it, warmed me. I hadn't manipulated her or betrayed and broken her trust yet. Her trust was intact at this period in time, while I was the one who now felt so broken, so useless. When I didn't answer, my throat too tight and dry to speak, she finally did turn and regarding me, said, "What's all this about then? You're not the Professor, who the hell are you?"

I cringed from the accusation in her voice, thinking she was more right about that then she'd ever possibly know. This, this wasn't making things better. It was merely cowardice and malfeasance, avoiding responsibility. I couldn't keep on turning a blind eye to what was happening out there, while all of time and space hung in the balance. What would Ace think of me then, if she knew? Far worse than she would soon after this, when I was still a man in a question mark waistcoat with a straw hat on my head and schemes in my soul. No schemes now, only regret. Bowing my head and stepping aside, I answered, "No one," before hurrying on my way. I shouldn't have come; I was playing with fire, risking too much by getting this close to my past. Meddle too much and it all could end up unravelling. As much as I would wish to undo some of my worst moments in my past, I couldn't. I just couldn't. That way lay the same spurious morality that I was fleeing.

_During..._

_"Bring me knitting!_"

Anything to get my mind off the rapidly decreasing time I had left to decide. Looking down at Cass' broken body, ignoring the impending choice I had, I was reminded of Ace. The girl had had her spirit, her fire... all quenched, now. She'd looked at me with the same expression that Davros had, when I'd tried to save him. When I had tried to pull him from his death at the jaws of his own creation, he had denied me just the same. He would rather die than take mercy from the likes of me, just as she had. Then again, perhaps being deposed as Emperor of the Daleks and having his own legacy turn their backs on him, like he was an irrelevant relic of the past, was just too much.

This place, so many memories, so much I had wanted to avoid, to forget- of course it would be Karn. And here I was, the Sisterhood looking on and waiting for their answer with baited breaths, wondering if I, myself was an irrelevant relic. Certainly my pacifism was, since it was becoming clearer that the only way to save anything was to start destroying what was necessary. So clear that it was now far nobler to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. I could see through the glass darkly and it was time to put away childish things. Things like the hope that it would all just go away, and the Time Lords and Daleks both would turn back from their course of utter destruction. There wasn't any real hope for the Daleks, but my own people... I had thought they'd be better than that, rise above petty things like the urge to conquer and prevail. But no, they were not. And if there was going to be anything left for the Lucie's, Molly's and yes, the Ace's of the universe, so be it.

I would fight.

For what need was there of Doctors to fix things and make them better when all had gone too far to repair? What else was there when all trust was lost and no amount of machinations and clever schemes would make it not so? So little time to decide, but really, how much time did one need? Dragging it out wouldn't make it any better, make it any less distasteful than it already was. Didn't make my self-condemnation any less, seeing that girl lying there, dead. What had I become, too craven to fight but too useless to save anyone as I was? Even she'd seen it, and I was too late to save her now. But how many more could I save, if I had more time? That was what was being offered: time. Time to make a difference, instead of being carried along like flotsam in the tide, like debris crashing onto a world that would shortly fall to the onslaught, otherwise. Everything might be coming to ruin around this world, and all might be rapidly shattering around me, but I would do this.

I could see the Eternal Flame burning bright in the distance, chastening and repulsing me both. Who would want to live forever, much less what _could _last forever, when it was all coming to a singularity of universal destruction? It's light and warmth failed to warm me, when the cold surety of the final end was simmering in my bones. But this was it, what it all came down to in the end. A moment to decide and no more. Someone had to make a stand, had to do what was right- and if I was lucky, I wouldn't survive long enough to see what little was left standing afterwards.

_"Physician, heal thyself."_


	7. vi

_I am become Death, destroyer of Worlds_,

Robert Oppenheimer, _misquoting the Bhagavad Gita_

_After..._

Breathe in, breathe out: such are the weaknesses and strictures of the flesh. Hearts pounding still, I rested my weary bones against the chill surface of the stone bench, tucked away in an alcove off the corridor leading to the Panopticon. Distant sounds of life were heard faintly, but were muffled against the maelstrom of my own thoughts and recollections. So introverted was I, that I barely heard the stealthy approach of footsteps and the whisper of voluminous robes against marble floors.

"Lord Doctor, I did not think to find you here." Romana was looking down at me, face a picture of inscrutable dignity.

"Don't call me that," I said as a matter of habit, glaring up at her. Often I had said it, but no one ever listened, locked into habit or perhaps their own obstinacy. "Not now, not after..."

"This war has changed us all," Romana said softly, eyes averted as she spoke.

I didn't reply, as it would merely be stating the obvious, and forming words was one chore too far at the time.

For a moment, it seemed like she was carefully choosing her words, turning them over and weighing them against circumstance and reason, before coming to a foregone conclusion in her mind. "I heard about Arcadia... the most recent version of events, that is." Uncommon hesitancy in her voice, she looked up again, eyes meeting mine. An uncommon sheen of some unspoken and indefinable emotion glistened there.

"There is nothing to say, nothing to speak of that will do any good. Some things cannot be changed," I grated, closing my eyes, unwilling to speak of it. That was a mistake, for the events replayed themselves behind my eyelids, like they had been wont to for the interminable length of time since then. Even a Time Lord lost track of the days, weeks, months and years with all the rewritten timelines, paradoxes, and shattered fixed points - much less the seconds and minutes between, no matter how regrettable and sorrowing they were.

_Then..._

The one time I had been too late was when it mattered the most. The fourth, fifth, or maybe the hundredth time that we'd fought for Arcadia and it had gone wrong, so wrong. The same batch of untried recruits as so many times before that, Alex amongst them as always, and the foolish old man who couldn't save them one last time. The same mad rush to get them out of there, to evacuate the city before the Daleks breached the Sky Trenches... only this time, the Daleks had retained the barest glimmer of a memory of the previous aborted timeline. Remembered and brought the appropriate weaponry to use as covering fire to hold off the removal of the civilian population beforehand.

"To the TARDIS," I had called, the city already in flames around me, smoke and ash burning my throat and stinging my eyes. I could see women and children fleeing from the attack, but I was too far to help them. Too far away to help anyone, it turned out.

Then came that fateful blinding flash, followed by the feeling of total wrongness that accompanied shifting timelines and temporal disturbances. Luck- or as I would have it, _misfortune_- was all that spared me, that and the nameless and nearly faceless guard, who caught me by the bandoleer and bodily restrained me.

He was shouting some meaningless garble in my face and shaking me by the lapels of my jacket, words lost in my distraction. How could I have heard him, when all I saw was _them?_ Caught up in that advanced time field, centuries and millennia passing in a fraction of the time it took to blink an eye, the glow of a hundred mere youths going through their regenerations in seconds lit Alex from behind. Alex, poor Alex, too human to regenerate and too Time Lord to be anything but caught in the trap, helplessly bathed in the fires of so many regenerations cycling futilely around him. Aging through middle age, to old age, to crumbling decrepitude will I could only watch in horror. Hair going from dark, to grey, to white in merest moments while some prattling fool held me back. Going from the flower of youth to a decaying ancient, eyes never leaving mine as he stared at me in bewildered, confused terror. No one had ever told them of that danger, told them that that could happen. Death was a given risk, nearly a foregone conclusion, but not this. Not the type of death where the lines between life and death blurred, merged, and transitioned until all was dust. Time could be rewritten, victories and losses could be undone, but not that. Not death by a Warp-Chrono-Field Generator, a misbegotten variant of our own Demat Gun that had been developed by our foes. A far lesser one that was, nonetheless, as effective as the original.

Done and dusted they were, while I had been forced to watch helplessly from the sidelines, as useless as I had ever been. What was I going to tell his mother? Susan had believed in me, believed I could keep him safe. He'd just been a boy. They'd _all _been little more than mere children, innocents not even past ninety, in the bloom of their first incarnations, just barely past living through the nightmares from the Untempered Schism. In Alex's case, his _only _incarnation. They hadn't belonged there, not on the charnel fields of Arcadia that were the rightful venue for those disheartened and disillusioned Gallifreyans who couldn't even gaze upon a mirror for fear of what they'd find looking back at them. People like me, and why hadn't I been the one in their place? I'd lived my time, I'd done enough, while they'd just started...

Only once the last of the glow had died down to the flickering imprints left upon psyches and retinas, did my tormentor let me loose. Standing, I couldn't even summon the strength to do more than stare at those pitiful, cruel little piles of turgid dust and ash left where a hundred young Gallifreyans had once stood. All those hopes and dreams, all the possibilities and futures: gone. What place was this for anyone, much less those with so much to live for and so much left to experience? I had seen so much, lived through so much more, why couldn't it have been me instead?

"Sir, please, you can't," that voice kept repeating in an almost mantra-like chant, forcing me to look upon my captor. He snapped his eyes away from the bloodless horror to look at me, jaw fumbling and quivering with his attempt to firm up his chin with resolve. Forcing the semblance of determination into his voice, he said, "We need you, Doctor, we need you so very much, Sir."

"Don't call me that," I snapped, and he promptly saluted, taking it as an order. Cringing at the reminder of my position, I pulled his hand away from his forehead. "Don't, just... don't."

"Sir?" The question held a wealth of confusion and bewilderment, but I hadn't the energy to explain to this simpleton.

"Or that, either," I added. Eyes burning with restrained emotion, hope dissipated like so much ash and smoke upon the breeze, I regarded him numbly. Fair curls darkened with sweat and partially smoothed down against his skull by a headset long since lost, he looked familiar. Almost like a ghost from the past, he was. Quailing slightly under my unflinching stare, he shuffled uncomfortably. "I've heard the stories, Sir, and-" He looked up again, eyes bright with misplaced belief- "you're the only one that can lead us out of this mess, find another way."

"Then you've been told wrong, my boy. Only a fool listens to rumors and takes them for truth." It was too much to bear. I had turned away then, unable to look upon such hope, such faith when I had none.

But that persistent fool ran after me, catching the sleeve of my jacket, gloves timidly grasping at the battered leather. "Please, Sir, the stories - my father told me them. About how you once turned down the Presidency, and saved Gallifrey from defeat before, when the Sontarans invaded. And when Omega tried to force himself back into a permanent place in reality-"

I turned back, annoyed with his forthright earnestness. "Who was your father, that he would fill your head with such foolishness and twaddle at such a young age?"

Taken aback, stiff posture betraying his offence, that callow youth keep his tone formal and measured as he replied, "Commander Maxil, of the Chancellery Guard."

I sniffed in amused displeasure at the memory of that prior meeting. "Horrible man, not an iota of humor in him anywhere. Couldn't take a joke, either." I catalogued the man before me. So similar, but not. Serious and driven by duty, yes, but possessing a fool's share of optimism when it was no longer warranted. "But perhaps I did manage to make an impression upon him, seeing as he's played the cruelest joke of them all on you."

His face screwed up with even more confusion. "Sir?"

Harshly, I pointed a finger to the plain behind us, still harboring the scattered remnants of Gallifrey's last hope. "Tell _them _how anyone can save you now. Tell _them_ how much anyone can do to stop this abomination. It's too late now, far too late for them, when they're _gone_." Hearts pounding in my chest and breath coming quicker with each word, I quoted, "_'Tell them in Sparta, you who read, that we obeyed their orders and are dead.' _Truer words were never written, scribed on parchment by a mere human from Earth's past, no less, but even he knew the sum of it all. If you take nothing from this, nothing at all but for one thing, know this: I can't save you, the High Council can't save you, the Lady President cannot save you."

With that, I turned and walked away through the burning rubble to my ship, leaving that resolute idiot to stand and gape at me.

"But Sir, you can't - you're the highest ranking officer here. Where will I get my orders until the War Room enacts the reset?" he called. "And the President..."

I ignored him, closing the door of the TARDIS with a firm finality.

_After..._

Bone weary, the centuries heavy upon my flesh, I sagged back. Perhaps she could still see the glow reflected in my eyes or perhaps the Couriers had already brought the news from the front lines, but Romana's eyes softened then. "I am truly sorry, Theta," she said softly, for once not using my long since abandoned title. Placing a hand that was meant to be comforting on my arm, she continued, "I know what this has cost you. Poor Alex. It was a mistake, a horrible mistake, and one that must not be repeated."

"Why didn't anyone plan for this? We knew what they were capable of, what lengths the Daleks would go to to recreate our own weaponry. Why didn't _you_ foresee the possibility?" I asked her, too wrung out for the full force of my accusations to be apparent and too knackered to hide my weary defeat. "I taught you better than that, Romana. To see the possibilities no one else saw, just because _no one else_ would see them. Why?"

"I did." Eyes downcast, her lips twitched in the barest hint of a bitter smile. "I did see it, and believe me, I did tell them, but they didn't listen. The Visionary foresaw the possibility and I had deduced the meaning from her circuitous ramblings, but no one heard me. They were too busy celebrating the instatement of Rassilon into office. I've been deposed."

Her words seemed to echo, catching me off guard. I was blaming the wrong person for the day's folly, when the one who was culpable was elsewhere. Elsewhere and supposed to be dead. I had told them they'd rue the day they decided to resurrect the past at the cost of the future. Resurrected and the cost was the futures of so many innocent lives...

I rose from my seat in righteous anger, ready to storm into the Council Chambers for a tongue lashing like none other. I would tell them in no uncertain terms what their hubris had wrought, make them see the true cost of war... but once more I was held back.

"Wait." Romana's voice was hushed, urgent. Eyes darting to and fro, her senses open wide for signs of eavesdroppers, she spoke barely above a whisper, "Before you go storming in there to tell them the errors of their ways, you must know this: it's too late. They've listened too long to Rassilon, the war has taken too much of a toll on us all. Most are prepared to follow him in his madness."

Angered at being restrained by someone with their own ideas of my best interests, I snapped, "Is there anything more obvious you can tell me? A planet-wide proclamation that the sky is orange, or that the snow on Mount Perdition is cold, or perhaps, that I'm too old and too tired for these sorts of games, Romana?"

Eyes flashing with her own temper, she retorted, "If you're going to be that way, fine. I'm sure you can rail at the inconceivable folly of it all while you're wafting about the nothingness as a blot of pure consciousness with the rest of us, while everything else in the cosmos is just memory. I'm sure you'll be content to know it's the last time there'll be a battle of Arcadia."

That brought me to a standstill. Alex and those untried and untested recruits being erased from time was agonizing enough, but this...

Seeing my expression, Romana nodded toward the direction of the Panopticon. "After they've reset the timeline and all the forces are gathered there at Arcadia once more, when the Dalek fleet is all within range, they're set to start the 'Final Sanction,' as Rassilon has called it. Simultaneously blowing up the Eye of Harmony and the Time Vortex in a method that will cause a causal loop that will tear all of reality apart. Everything will cease to exist, outside of the germs of Time Lord consciousness left in the Matrix data banks," she said flatly, emotions failing in the face of something so unimaginable. "All those planets and people you once showed me, they will never have existed. The Louvre, E-Space, all just... _gone_."

My voice broke on the single word I forced from a throat raw with heartsbreak: "Why?"

"Because they've given up hope, like you have," she replied softly. "They see no other way out from under the shadow of war and can't imagine anything else but death and destruction anymore."

"There has to be a better way," I denied, almost ready to weep from it all. Already ideas were beginning to form in my mind, possible scenarios that were all just as terrible as that. They would spare the rest of reality, but the price... Ye gods and the little fishes, _the price we'd have to pay_. But what was that, in the face of the alternative? Everything reduced to us versus them in its purest form.

Seeing Romana, the sad acceptance in her eyes, the weight of responsibility bowing her shoulders but not bowing her resolve, she knew. Oh how she knew, and knew it was all down to me. "I think the universe needs a Doctor, someone who'll make things better," she said softly, as I strode away to enact my final condemnation.

As Arcadia burned again and refugees fled before the invading Dalek troops, I requisitioned a plasma cannon off that supercilious offspring of Commander Maxil's. With it, I left my only warning to my people writ upon the crumbling remnants of a city wall before making my way to the Archives. I took what was needed and made my way to the plains, far from the Capital and further yet from where Arcadia was falling.

This could not stand; this could not go on. Even if I managed to stir them from their mass hysteresis, it wouldn't turn them from their set course and this could not go on.

No more.

_"Daleks of Skaro, Time Lords of Gallifrey, I stand in judgement upon you all..."_


	8. vii

_Fear no more the heat o' the sun_

_Nor the furious winter's rages_

_Thou thy worldly task hast done,_

_Home art gone and ta'en thy wages;_

_Golden Lads and girls all must,_

_As chimney sweepers come to dust,_

_No exorcisers harm thee,_

_Nor no witch craft charm thee_

_Quiet consolation have_

_And reknown'd be thy grave_

From_ Cymbeline_ by William Shakespeare

_Later..._

Fire burns but doesn't consume, and out of the conflagration I rise, like the Phoenix of old earth legends. A war in heaven rent apart half of the universe, driving the despairing Eternals from this dimension. All the other remaining higher species that had survived looked on in sorrow and turned their faces away in horror at what was left. The Time Lords only lived on in stories, like myths whispered across the galaxy. Tales to tell in the dark of night, when the weight of the obsidian black pressed down on those lesser mortals who transposed their very real fears of the known and unknown into mere fairy tales to shiver at.

As for the end, no one was ever meant to survive that. Certainly I hadn't intended to, I with so much blood on my hands. But the universe isn't that kind, it never is. Sometimes it gives, only to take it all back, or worse, lets you watch it all burn around you and the only thing left at the end is you. And I did more than that, I made it all burn. Burn for all the worlds that were wiped out, for all the races that were erased from time, for every stinking Dalek that ever tainted a planet with their filth. Not only that, I did it for every planet that hadn't even taken its first steps out into space, for every life left still untouched, and for the last remnants of hope that anyone might still possess. I wiped out all my people, including 2.47 billion children, so that all no one else would have to make that choice. The choice between their home and kin and everyone else's on the millions of worlds out there that my people and Skaro hadn't already destroyed. Living was the penance for that choice, because lesser of no evils or not, excision of cancer or not, genocide is genocide. And I've got to live with that, like She said I would.

_Damn her._

Waking in the shredded remnants of leather and velvet, a face that I didn't even dare to even look at, the Moment hadn't lied. As for my face, how could I? _Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you_. I, I had fallen into the abyss and hard. And who wants to look at a monster, especially when the monster is you? Best to leave that a sight unseen, a face unknown, lest the darkness within escape and bare itself in all its glory again. Quiet, so utterly quiet in my head. All those centuries, even when I was busy running away, there was still that presence, that tickle in the back of my mind letting me know I wasn't alone. All those billions of sparks, floating around in the ether, just _gone._ And now there's only me.

Except, now I'm not the only one, not the only survivor.

Of all the things to have fallen through time, of all the things to have survived the desecration, it was _that._ A lone Dalek. Its very existence mocked me, mocked everything that had been lost. Susan, Braxiatel, Romana, Andred, poor hapless Alex - even the Rani and everyone else - dead. And for what? What good was their sacrifice when the one thing that justified it, the one thing that had kept me going past waking up in a burning TARDIS - what good was it, when I had failed even that?

And oh, the universe's sick, twisted humor comes again: it can't even do the one thing it was made for. A Dalek that can't kill, how rich is that? Laugh at me now, O Fortuna; giggle in my ear, cruel Fate, 'cos you know what?_ I can_.

And I will, except, there's this silly little pink and yellow human, telling me that I can't. Asking what I've become, as if she hadn't known all along. There's whole worlds out there that still exist, because of me, millions of them. More to the point, there's one world less that _doesn't_ exist. Also because of me. And doing this, finishing what I had started back in a nursery on Skaro all those centuries ago, it would be so easy, so _right…_

Except it's not. 'Cos if I did, the way she'd look at me, she'd see the same thing Cass did, back on that gunship crashing over Karn. She'd see what I was, what I'd become, what they'd _made_ me, and I couldn't stand it.

_Who can tell the difference anymore?_

I couldn't do it, I just couldn't. Stars have mercy on me, I couldn't do it. Close my eyes and all I see is my hand, hovering over that button that must never ever be pushed, with the weight of billions of deaths on my weary shoulders and the fate of billions more hanging in the balance. But I did, I pushed it that day and here was that choice in front of me again. That was the day it wasn't possible to get it right, to get anything right; caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, when there wasn't a better way. What about today?

What was one, lone Dalek against seeing my own self condemnation reflected back at me? The eyes are the mirrors and the gateways to the soul and the thought of seeing just a fraction of what was reflected in my own... just, please, don't make me decide like this again. And if I have to, if I can, believe me when I say I'm sorry after. Sorry I lived when others didn't; sorry I couldn't stop it in time; sorry for letting just one innocent life get touched by this. Cass, I won't forget and this time, I've learned about the consequences, and it's all come back around again. Another impossible decision to make, another load of responsibility to bear, and I can't do it this time - _or can I? Have I the right?_ Or I can run, leave someone else to bear the burden. Run, like I always have done. Run as far and as fast as I can, like that coward that I am, who couldn't even bring himself to make a stand until a young girl shamed me into it, when it was far too late. Except there's no one else, because I killed them all, and it's all up to me.

_One lone Dalek..._

_Between the desire_

_And the spasm_

_Between the potency_

_And the existence_

_Between the essence_

_And the descent_

_Falls the Shadow..._


End file.
